Varadkar to announce new national cancer strategy

A new national cancer strategy for the development of services in the years ahead is to be drawn up, Minister for Health Leo Varadkar will announce today.

In a speech at the launch of a report on the implementation of the previous national cancer strategy, which dates back to 2006, he is expected to say that a working group will be established to draft a blueprint.

The report, drawn up by the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) on the implementation of the 2006 strategy, says the intervening years have seen a major consolidation of cancer services.

“The fragmented arrangements then in place (in 2006) were not in accordance with best practice. Services were spread across 36 hospitals, many with small volumes of cancer patients and lacking full multidisciplinary teams .”

The report says eight designated cancer services were established across the country at St James's Hospital, Dublin; Beaumont Hospital, Dublin; St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin; The Mater Hospital, Dublin; Waterford University Hospital, Cork University Hospital, Galway University Hospital (with a satellite unit at Letterkenny General Hospital) and Limerick University Hospital.

The report says the NCCP initially prioritised the centralisation of breast cancer surgery into the eight designated cancer centres where previously it had been carried out in 32 centres.

It says that subsequently the programme progressively moved to centralise prostate, lung, pancreas, rectal and oesophageal cancer services into designated centres.